The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1887-08-06
''ONLY A TENTH"
-'With Him, Worth All the Other,
Ten Times Told"

d0nOrla, nelroSS OF Cyprlan wentworth,
late Of Dernside, was sorting papers and
unburnt correspondence he had left when
summoned with such small warning twelve
months ago from the home they two had
peacefully inhabited since her childhood.
Every scrap Of his own writing she saved;
she had so little Of it, for Mr.. Wentworth,
proud and Grabbed as some called him,
though always kind to this one child, had
kept up but rare intercourse with the outer
world. Except for exact accounts with his
steward Honoria scarcely knew him to take
pen in hand once q week, and missives to
him were rarer still; so the task she had
put of through her first sorrowing year
promised to be light one, till one bit of
note-paper suddenly made it very heavy
the heaviest load her days had ever known.
She might have burned it with the rest,
this fortune-freighted missive, but line
or two in Mr. Wentworth's own hand, writ.
ten crosswise on the sheet, attracted her
attention.
Answered in the negative same day as
received. G. w., August 4, 1SS-" this
postscript ran.
august" Only month before he
diedi Tears filled Honorias eyes as she
glanced down this, probably the last COM
munication replied to ere she lost him. But
before the tears could fall, another express
sion than that OF grief, one Of intense
amazement, incredulity, fear, swept over
her countenance
White and scared she stumbled to her
fathers seat, by the old library table, and,
with her head leaning dizzily on her trem-
bling hands, read over and over again
words which utterly COMPOUNDED her.
''You must be conscious, my dear
brother" ran the lines addressed to
Cyprian Wentworth, to him whom she had
called "Father," who to the best Of her
knowledge had no tie Of kindred but her.
self-"You must be conscious sometimes, 1
think, that the course you elected to take
towards Hester and myself has been a
harsh one. We have both OF us made close
acquaintance with poverty, since that week
when you gave US our mothers small por-
tion, and told US that of your own far larger
inheritance we should have no share what
ever, come what might. But neither of us
would have asked you to recant a syllable,
as far as money goes, for our own sakes
alone 1t is for our children that now
write, spokeswoman for all, for Hester
has long been invalided; and for their
young and unoffending sakes I ask: Will
you not recall the sentence of six-and-
twenty years agoa Will you not put out q
helping hand, ever so little, to them, If not
to us, your sisters, who, surely, in the
struggles of our widowed lives, have paid
heavily for having thwarted your wishes
concerning thems viii you not Il must
say as once used), dear Cyprian, give
Just fraction of the wealth we hear you
are amassing for an adopted daughter
absolutely an alien by birth, to assist uI
to the first bitterly difficult steps of the
worlds ladder your own near kinsfolkl II
you can not forgive US mothers, will you
not help our boys3"
Suddenly a thought struck her. A ring
at the bell brought her own maid to the
library. A hasty order fetched the now
seldom-used brougham to the door, At the
sight of this Mrs. Crosbie, the rector's
wife, who, with all her brood, had a
Honoria's request taken up her residence
ut Dernside for the many months their par
sonage was rebuilding, hurried to the hal
from her own wing Of the old house, ask
ing what journey its young mistress was
now bound on.
"Only to RotherAeld," pale Honoria an.
swered. 81 have been looking over-over
papas papers -"
''And vexing yourself, poor child" said
Mrs. Crosbie, putting her arm round her as
they walked to the carriage.
Sand want to consult Mr.. Dean about
some thing" Then on her six-mile driv,
she was soon speeding.
1t was evening when she came back, an,
this is what she got for her pains: Tn,
story which sent her questioning to Rother
field was absolutely true, though not sin
gle person living at Dernside had sus
pected it. Native Of Southern home, Mr.
Wentworth's family affairs had been ,
sealed book to his neighbors, where he hal
purchased his property twelve years be
fore. Only to his lawyer, and to him bu
recently, when his last will was made, ha,
it been known that his brief married life
passed chiefly on the Continent, had beel
childless, and that Honoria, inheritress o
all he possessed, was but the daughter o
ayoung officer and pretty, penniless CIR
whom he persuaded to make runawa,
match from school. But 80 1t was; MI
Wentworth, always a man of impulse, ha'
chanced on the young couple when the girl
mother was dying, her husband just or
dered abroad to the active service, in whic
he fell. The child, whose very existenc
was u load OF pain to the young parents, h
adopted from its infancy, giving it hi
name, making 1t his own by every Iossibl
legal tie, and spending on it all the tender
ness Of o disposition which knew well ho'
70 be kind, II not opposed. slse hf